City officials are trying to get creative — and find money — to preserve open spaces

A decade of high-density development and population growth inside Denver is devouring breathing room: Open space per resident has shrunk to less than the national norm.

And people in the thick of it are chapped.

"It is a new asphalt jungle," said Allen Clark, owner of Clark's Downing Street Auto Body, which he founded in 1998 north of downtown, where multistory condo and retail complexes are replacing homes featuring porches and yards.

"We're looking at areas where you can barely walk between the buildings," Clark said. "They don't even bother to put grass in front of them any more."

The amount of open space per resident in Denver dwindled to less than a third of the space in neighboring Aurora and less than half the space in Colorado Springs, according to data provided by the Trust for Public Land, which promotes preservation of natural land.